The Website and Blog for Schmeltzer PR

Republican Tax Plan Ad Concepts – Free!

One of the toughest parts of being in progressive political communications is that our side doesn’t have money like the other side, especially when it comes to off-years.

I can’t tell you how many incredibly good television ad scripts I’ve read that were never produced, because no group had the money to do it.

So it is, again, with the fight over the GOP tax bill. This time, though, rather than look at some scripts, sigh, and shove them away in the purgatory of the hard drive, I thought I’d post them here.

I know there are a lot of talented film makers, video editors, actors and voice artists out there who could produce these scripts on their own. I know this because I saw people doing it during Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign, that I worked on, and I saw it again when MoveOn ran a contest for best grassroots ad, in the Bush era, and there were hundreds of top notch submissions (winner here).

I tried to come up with concepts that came at the argument from a more populist bent, and could reasonably be produced at low cost. Some of these concepts could be done with just a laptop. Some will take more time and effort. But all of them could be produced and put online before the final vote on the GOP tax plan.

So, all yours, grassroots. If you do choose to any concept in part, or in whole, all I ask is that you give me a public writing credit, and link back to this site. That’s it!

“ELITISM”Level of difficulty to produce: Easy
Description: A quick ad that plays off of Senator Grassley’s comments that regular people will only blow money on booze and women, if you give it to them.Download

“HANDS”Level of difficulty to produce: Medium
Description: One-minute ad that uses the visual of money being passed from hand to hand, to show how working people are paying for wealthy tax cuts, and how our future generations will pay the price.Download

“GONE”Level of difficulty to produce: Medium
Description: Thirty-second ad that shows a world without Social Security and Medicare, after Rubio and other Republicans let on that they plan to gut those programs to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.Download

“REVERSE ROBIN HOOD”Level of difficulty to produce: Hard
Description: A great 60-second ad if you have time and ability. The GOP tax plan is a Reverse Robin Hood. A bad fairy tale, and even worse economics.Download